


On The Wing

by Thistlerose



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For one week, they were equals at High Reaches Weyr. Then J’mmy Impressed bronze Pineth while H’karu Impressed brown Choth, and everything changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Wing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jactrades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jactrades/gifts).



> Many thanks to Sail_aweigh for beta reading!

By the time Wingleader S’pock called a halt to the day’s practice flight, the sun was low on the horizon, and the jagged shadows of the High Reaches stretched long across the valley far below.

H’karu sighed with relief, tipped his head back, and rolled his shoulders to try to work out some of the stiffness. In his mind, brown Choth said, _Quintoth says that we flew well today!_ H’karu couldn’t help smiling at the obvious pride in the dragon’s tone; he too was pleased, both with their flying and the fact that the wingleader had taken notice.

All too many bronze riders considered smaller dragons to be beneath their notice, unless they did something really wrong.

And _some_ bronze riders…

But Choth interrupted his thought, pointing out that, at this altitude, pretty much everything was beneath them.

With a snort of laughter, H’karu leaned forward, as far as his riding straps would allow, to pet the great brown neck affectionately. “True, my friend, very true. I can’t argue with your logic. And neither, I imagine, would Wingleader S’pock.” Straightening his back and wincing as vertebrae popped, H’karu added, “But right now, all I want is a bath and some hot _klah_.”

Choth rumbled his approval of this plan.

Around them, bronze, brown, blue, and green dragons were winking out, taking the quickest route back to High Reaches Weyr. H’karu watched them go, enjoying the dying daylight and the crisp breeze on the back of his neck just a little bit longer. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of bronze.

 _Pineth asks what we are waiting for,_ said Choth.

“Tell Pineth and his rider that it’s none of their business. No—” he amended quickly. “Don’t say that. Ignore them.” H’karu closed his eyes and started to visualize the weyr at sunset, the ice-capped crags tinted pink and gold…

 _Pineth has challenged us to a race._

“Shards!” H’karu turned his head and glared at the big bronze dragon, drifting above them on an updraft, the great wings fully unfurled, their delicate membranes aglow. It wasn’t the dragon who annoyed him, though, but his rider … who couldn’t see H’karu’s expression of irritation from that distance.

“Ignore them,” he said again, through clenched teeth, to Choth. “Just ignore them. Let’s go home.”

Some bronze riders…

The shock of _between_ knocked the thought from his mind. For approximately three seconds, dragon and rider hung suspended in nothingness. No sight, no sound. H’karu couldn’t even feel his own heartbeat, never mind the great beast beneath him. Then, in the instant before sensory deprivation became too much, they emerged above the great bowl of the weyr and began to spiral downward through the deepening twilight. Glows flickered in the many cavern entrances, a welcoming sight.

The moment Choth alighted on the ledge outside their own weyr, H’karu began to unbuckle his riding straps. It took a few moments, because his fingers were numb despite his wherhide gloves. But once he was free, he slid from the dragon’s back and hurried into his quarters, stripping as he went. He paused only to call down to the kitchens for some _klah_ and a hot dinner.

Leaving his dragon to settle himself, and his clothes and boots in a messy trail on the floor, H’karu half-slid, half-flopped into the large pool of steaming water at the back of his weyr. Had any of his peers or superiors been there to witness him, they probably would have laughed. H’karu didn’t care; craft-hall born and raised, these hot springs of the weyrs were a luxury to which he had not yet grown accustomed. Turning over onto his back, H’karu rested his head against the smooth rim of the bathing pool and closed his eyes.

As his body relaxed, his mind drifted. Back across the turns to his boyhood at Farmcraft Hall, half a world away from High Reaches Weyr. A lifetime away, it often seemed to him. H’karu’s kinfolk had cultivated plants for centuries, and for the first sixteen turns of his life he’d thought that that would be his destiny as well. And it would have been all right, he supposed. Not glorious, perhaps, but satisfying. H’karu liked working with his hands, liked things that grew in adversity. What could be more adverse to plants than the silver Threads that fell regularly from the sky, incinerating all they touched?

Then, one morning, dragons from High Reaches Weyr had come on Search. Or rather, dragonriders from High Reaches had come to speak with the Masterfarmer – technically, Farmcraft Hall was beholden to Ista Weyr – and one of their beasts had taken a keen interest in H’karu. So he’d been whisked away from his home and family, from what he’d grown up believing was his destiny.

 _And then you met me,_ Choth said eagerly.

“Yes, then I met you,” H’karu murmured, smiling.

Actually, he’d arrived at the Weyr a full sevenday before the hatching, and he’d had time to meet a good number of people, including Weyrleader Ch’ris, Wingleader S’pock, Weyrhealer M’coy, Weyrwoman Winona … and Winona’s son by the previous weyrleader. Winona’s son, who’d been sent as a baby to live with the weyrwoman’s brother in Tillek Hold. Who’d grown up doing absolutely nothing worthwhile – rumor had it he’d once driven his uncle’s gather cart into a quarry – but who had nevertheless returned to the weyr of birth, determined to Impress a dragon.

J’mmy.

 _H’karu? Pineth is requesting permission to land._

H’karu groaned. “Can’t you tell him to go away?”

 _I have told Pineth that you are bathing, but J’mmy insists._ A moment later, sounding somewhat aggrieved, Choth added, _Pineth is a bronze and I am a brown._ As if that explained – or excused – everything.

H’karu struck the side of the bathing pool impotently with his fist.

“Careful, don’t hurt yourself,” a familiar voice drawled.

H’karu shot his dragon a mental glare.

 _They are fast,_ Choth said somewhat meekly.

“Tell me about it,” H’karu grumbled.

“Don’t get up,” J’mmy said, though H’karu hadn’t moved. “I’ll join you.” He began to remove his wherhide jacket.

“Keep your clothes on,” H’karu told him. “You’ll be leaving in a minute.”

“I figured you didn’t want to see me,” said J’mmy. Letting his jacket fall to the floor, he crossed his arms over his belly and grabbed the hem of his tunic. Lifting it, he added, “You were pretty rude, before.”

“I didn’t want to race you, that’s all. Don’t—”

But J’mmy was already pulling his tunic over his head and, try as he might, H’karu couldn’t look away from the smooth, tanned skin of his chest and shoulders. He swallowed when J’mmy started to undo his pants.

A moment later, J’mmy splashed into the pool, sloshing water over the sides. He could never just slide into something calmly. He got his own clothes wet; that, at least, gave H’karu a little bit of satisfaction.

“So, what’s the matter?” J’mmy said, thankfully keeping his distance – for the time being.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

J’mmy rolled his eyes. “You know what you sound like? Some holder’s brat. We’re dragon men; we can say whatever we want to each other.”

“Fine. Get out. I don’t want to talk to you.”

J’mmy’s dark blond brows pinched together. “But I just got here. Pineth just got comfortable.”

“ _J’mmy_ …”

“Fine,” J’mmy said. “I’ll leave if you’ll tell me why you’re acting this way. That sevenday before the hatching was amazing. I really thought we had something. Don’t you remember? We were going to be a team. Then the eggs hatched and … everything changed. And you never said a word, so I’ve spent the past eighteen months just wracking my brain. You _can’t_ be angry because I Impressed a bronze, while you Impressed a brown. Because that’s just … that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Throughout J’mmy’s speech, H’karu had been aware of Choth’s concern. It coiled in his mind, and at J’mmy’s last sentence, it went suddenly taut.

 _No,_ H’karu said fiercely to his dragon, glaring at J’mmy. _He’s wrong. I love you. You’re mine, I’m yours, and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference that you’re a brown. You’re perfect as you are._

 _So are you,_ Choth said soothingly.

H’karu and J’mmy regarded each other in silence for a long, long moment. Even through the rising steam, J’mmy’s eyes were intensely blue, his lips plush and very pink.

At length, J’mmy drew in a long, deep breath and then said softly, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong,” H’karu said. Then he added reluctantly, “Mostly.”

Again, silence fell between them. H’karu lowered his gaze from J’mmy’s face to the flushed skin of his chest. It was a mistake. All at once he remembered the taste of that skin, and the way J’mmy had shivered and gasped when he’d captured those nipples between his teeth.

One sevenday was all they’d had. In that short time, J’mmy had promised him so many things.

“We were going to be equals,” H’karu burst out finally, bitterly. “Now we can’t be.”

“Says who?”

“Says everything! Says tradition. You’re going to be Weyrleader someday, and I’ll never be more than wingsecond.”

“I won’t be Weyrleader for a while,” J’mmy pointed out. “Unless I go to another Weyr. Pineth won’t fly Morrith. I mean, it’s not unheard of for a bronze dragon to fly the queen that hatched him, but … Winona is my mother too.” He gave a brief, dismissive laugh. “I could always find someone to stand in during the mating flight – Gaila’s already volunteered, actually –” (H’karu snorted) “– but we’d still have to run things together and … I’m ambitious, but I’m not _that_ ambitious.”

“So you’ll wait until Winona steps down as Weyrwoman. Fine. Pineth will fly Saldanath.”

“If Quintoth lets him.”

“If Saldanath lets him, I think. Nyota still doesn’t like you.”

They both knew that affection between riders – or animosity in the case of J’mmy and Nyota – very rarely came into play during mating flights. Still, J’mmy chuckled, and despite himself, H’karu felt the corners of his lips creeping upward into a smile.

Then J’mmy said, “Even if Pineth succeeded in flying Saldanath, I don’t want a woman who doesn’t want me. I think Nyota and I could lead High Reaches well. But we wouldn’t be…” He lifted his hands from the water and locked his fingers together. “Like this. That’s what I want _you_ for.”

H’karu jerked his head up. J’mmy was still looking at him steadily, earnestly.

H’karu swallowed.

“One way or another,” said J’mmy, “I’m going to be Weyrleader, just like my father. Either here or somewhere else. And I need _you_ … I _want_ you at my side.” Very slowly, he started to move forward. But at the first brush of his fingertips, H’karu bristled.

“Shards, J’mmy—”

“You sound like M’coy. I intend to lead the Weyr in a new direction. This hierarchy among dragonkind isn’t helping Pern. It breeds resentment, and it holds riders back. _Good_ riders, like you, H’karu. There’s no reason to be sorry you Impressed a brown. I may end up outranking you, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re equal in all other ways.”

H’karu cocked an eyebrow. “Except at sword fighting, when I kick your ass.”

“Except at sword fighting,” J’mmy acknowledged.

Tentatively, H’karu reached out and put his hands on J’mmy’s waist. “What do you plan to do?” he murmured.

J’mmy clasped H’karu’s biceps. “You can tell me I won’t have to take Gaila up on her offer.”

“By doing what? Promising to be there if Pineth manages to fly Saldanath?”

J’mmy nodded. By now, his face was mere inches from H’karu’s; he could all but feel the flutter of those dark gold lashes.

“It would show the Weyr just how serious I am about bucking tradition,” said J’mmy.

“And give Nyota and S’pock one less reason to want to murder you in your sleep.”

“That, too.”

H’karu jerked J’mmy closer and kissed his mouth. As he did, intense emotion surged inside him: lust, of course, but hope too – echoed and magnified by Choth. J’mmy’s deep, rustling laughter tickled his lips. Then his hands were carding through H’karu’s damp hair, and his erection was nudging H’karu’s thigh.

This was how it had been during that long-ago sevenday. With no one to tell them they weren’t equals, they’d come together just like this, seeking and giving physical pleasure while talking about changing the world.

Choth sent him a mental picture of his long brown neck twined with Pineth’s bronze one.

They could do it, H’karu thought, while the fingers of one hand curled around J’mmy’s erection. On the ledge outside the weyr, the two dragons crooned their support.

1/17/2012


End file.
